A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts on another country (see also marches).

A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". A difference has also been established in academic scholarship between Frontier and Border, the latter denoting a fixed, rigid and clear-cut form of state boundary.[1]

In the European Union, the frontier is the region beyond the expanding borders of the European Union itself. EU has designated the countries surrounding it as part of the European Neighbourhood. This is a region of primarily less-developed countries, many of which aspire to become part of the union. Current applicants include Turkey and many small countries in the Balkans and South Caucasus. Romania and Bulgaria joined EU in 2007. Proposals to admit Turkey have been debated but are now currently stalled, partly on the ground that Turkey is beyond Europe's historic frontier and it is yet to comply with the 35 point policy areas set out by EU. If all or most East European states become members, the frontier may be the boundaries with Russia and Turkey.

The term "frontier" was frequently[quantify] used[by whom?] in colonial Australia in the meaning of country that borders the unknown or uncivilised, the boundary, border country, the borders of civilisation, or as the land that forms the furthest extent of what was frequently termed "the inside" or "settled" districts.[3] The "outside" was another term frequently used in colonial Australia, this term seemingly[original research?] covered not only the frontier but the districts beyond. Settlers at the frontier thus frequently referred to themselves as "the outsiders" or "outside residents" and to the area in which they lived as "the outside districts". At times one might hear the "frontier" described as "the outside borders".[4] However the term "frontier districts" was seemingly[original research?] used predominantly in the early Australian colonial newspapers whenever dealing with skirmishes between black and white in northern New South Wales and Queensland, and in newspaper reports from South Africa, whereas it was seemingly not so commonly used when dealing with affairs in Victoria, South Australia and southern New South Wales. The use of the word "frontier" was thus frequently connected to descriptions of frontier violence, as in a letter printed in the Sydney Morning Herald in December 1850 which described murder and carnage at the northern frontier and calling for the protection of the settlers saying: "...nothing but a strong body of Native Police will restore and keep order in the frontier districts, and as the squatters are taxed for the purpose of such protection".[5]

The word "frontier" has often meant a region at the edge of a settled area, especially in North American development. It was a transition zone where explorers, pioneers and settlers were arriving. Frederick Jackson Turner said that "the significance of the frontier" was that as pioneers moved into the "frontier zone," they were changed by the encounter. For example, Turner argues in 1893 that in the United States, unlimited free land in this zone was available, and thus offered the psychological sense of unlimited opportunity. This, in turn, had many consequences such as optimism, future orientation, shedding the restraints of land scarcity, and the wastage of natural resources.

In the earliest days of European settlement of the Atlantic coast, the frontier was any part of the forested interior of the continent lying beyond the fringe of existing settlements along the coast and the great rivers, such as the St. Lawrence, Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna River and James.

English, French, Spanish and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different. Only a few thousand French migrated to Canada. These habitants settled in villages along the St. Lawrence river, building communities that remained stable for long stretches, rather than leapfrogging west the way the English and later Americans did. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds, as far as the Rocky Mountains, they did not usually settle down. French settlement in these areas was limited to a few very small villages on the lower Mississippi and in the Illinois Country.[6] The Dutch set up fur trading posts in the Hudson River valley, followed by large grants of land to patroons, who brought in tenant farmers that created compact, permanent villages. They did not push westward.[7]

In contrast, the English colonies generally pursued a more systematic policy of widespread settlement of the New World, for cultivation and exploitation of the land, which required the extension of European property rights to the new continent. The typical English settlements were quite compact and small—under 3 square kilometres (1 square mile). Conflict with the Native Americans arose out of political issues, i.e. who would rule. Early frontier areas east of the Appalachian Mountains included the Connecticut River valley.[8] The French and Indian Wars of the 1760s resulted in a complete victory for the British, who took over the French colonial territory west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River. Americans began moving across the Appalachians into areas such the Ohio Country and the New River Valley.

Most of the frontier movement was east to west, but there were other directions as well. The frontier in New England lay to the north; in Nevada to the east; in Florida to the south. Throughout American history, the expansion of settlement was largely from the east to the west, and thus the frontier is often identified with "the west." On the Pacific Coast, settlement moved eastward.

A "Canadian frontier thesis" was developed by Canadian historians Harold Adams Innis and J. M. S. Careless. They emphasized the relationship between the center and periphery. Katerberg argues that "in Canada the imagined West must be understood in relation to the mythic power of the North." [Katerberg 2003] This is reflected in Canadian literature with the phrase "garrison mentality." In Innis's 1930 work The Fur Trade in Canada, he expounded on what became known as the Laurentian thesis: that the most creative and major developments in Canadian history occurred in the metropolitan centers of central Canada and that the civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe. Innis considered place as critical in the development of the Canadian West and wrote of the importance of metropolitan areas, settlements, and indigenous people in the creation of markets. Turner and Innis continue to exert influence over the historiography of the American and Canadian Wests. The Quebec frontier showed little of the individualism or democracy that Turner ascribed to the American zone to the south. The Nova Scotia and Ontario frontiers were rather more democratic than the rest of Canada, but whether that was caused by the need to be self-reliant at the frontier itself, or the presence of large numbers of American immigrants is debated.

Swiss immigrants camped on the shores of Lake Winnipeg in the autumn of 1821

The Canadian political thinker Charles Blattberg has argued that such events ought to be seen as part of a process in which Canadians advanced a "border" as distinct from a "frontier" – from east to west. According to Blattberg, a border assumes a significantly sharper contrast between the civilized and the uncivilized since, unlike a frontier process, the civilizing force is not supposed to be shaped by that which it is civilizing. Blattberg criticizes both the frontier and border "civilizing" processes.

The pattern of settlement of the Canadian prairies began in 1896, when the American prairie states had already achieved statehood. Like their American counterparts, the Prairie provinces supported populist and democratic movements in the early 20th century.[9]

For the next century, the expansion of the nation into these areas, as well as the subsequently acquired Louisiana Purchase, Oregon Country, and Mexican Cession, attracted hundreds of thousands of settlers. Whether the Kansas frontier would become "slave" or "free" kindled the American Civil War. In general before 1860, Northern Democrats promoted easy land ownership and Whigs and Southern Democrats resisted. The Southerners resisted Homestead Acts because it supported the growth of a free farmer population that might oppose slavery.

When the Republican Party came to power in 1860 it promoted a free land policy — notably the Homestead Act of 1862, coupled with railroad land grants that opened cheap (but not free) lands for settlers. In 1890, the frontier line had broken up (Census maps defined the frontier line as a line beyond which the population density was under 2 inhabitants per square mile or 0.8 inhabitants per square kilometre).

The effect of the frontier upon popular culture was enormous, in dime novels, Wild West shows, and, after 1910, Western movies set on the frontier.

The American frontier was generally the westernmost edge of a settlement and typically more free-spirited than in the East because of its lack of social and political institutions. The idea that the frontier provided the core defining quality of the United States was elaborated by the historian Frederick Jackson Turner, who built his Frontier Thesis in 1893 around this notion. Subsequently, the frontier has also been described as the point of contact between two cultures, where contact led to exchanges that affected both cultures.[10]

^Richards, John F. (2003). "7: Frontier Settlement in Russia". The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World. California world history library. 1 (reprint ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 263. ISBN9780520230750. Retrieved 2016-08-15. Discharged and unemployed or deserting servicemen, younger sons and other dependents of men already in frontier service in older areas, fleeing criminals, sedentarized steppe Tatars, and cossacks took up residence in or near the new centers. Decade after decade, however, peasants fleeing to the frontier made up the largest category of migrants. [...] The more venturesome Russian migrants avoided the frontier towns and peasant villages in favor of life as cossacks (from the Turkic kazak, meaning 'free man').

Katerberg, William H. "A Northern Vision: Frontiers and the West in the Canadian and American Imagination." American Review of Canadian Studies 2003 33(4): 543–563. ISSN 0272-2011 Fulltext online at Ebsco

Mulvihill, Peter R.; Baker, Douglas C.; and Morrison, William R. "A Conceptual Framework for Environmental History in Canada's North." Environmental History 2001 6(4): 611–626. ISSN 1084-5453. This proposes a five-part conceptual framework for the study of environmental history in the Canadian North. The first element of the framework analyzes approaches to environmental history that are applicable to the Canadian North. The second element reviews historical forces, myths, and defining characteristics that pertain to the region. A third element of the framework tests the validity of Turner's Frontier Thesis and Creighton's Metropolitan Thesis when applied to northern Canada. The fourth element consists of an overview of major northern environmental trends. The final element consists of four interrelated themes that identify the environmental relationships between northern and southern Canada.

The World in 2015: National borders undermined? 11-min video interview with Bernard Guetta, a columnist for Libération newspaper and France Inter radio. "For [Guetta], one of the main lessons from international relations in 2014 is that national borders are becoming increasingly irrelevant. These borders, drawn by the colonial powers, were and still are entirely artificial. Now, people want borders along national, religious or ethnic lines. Bernard Guetta calls this a "comeback of real history"."

In geography and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community in which people live. A settlement can range in size from a number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. Settlements may include hamlets, villages and cities, a settlement may have known historical properties such as the date or era in which it was first settled, or first settled by a particular people. In the field of geospatial predictive modeling, settlements are a city, village ghost or other agglomeration of buildings where people live and work. The oldest remains that have found of constructed dwellings are remains of huts that were made of mud. The Natufians built houses, in the Levant, around 10,000 BC, remains of settlements such as villages become much more common after the invention of agriculture. Landscape history studies the form of settlements – for example whether they are dispersed or nucleated, urban morphology can thus be considered a special type of cultural-historical landscape studies.

Settlements can be ordered by size, centrality or other factors to define a settlement hierarchy, geoscience Australia defines a populated place as a named settlement with a population of 200 or more persons. The Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia used the term localities for rural areas, the Bulgarian Government publishes a National Register of Populated Places. The Canadian government uses the term populated place in the Atlas of Canada, Statistics Canada uses the term localities for historical named locations. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics records population in units called settlements, the Census Commission of India has a special definition of census towns. The Central Statistics Office of the Republic of Ireland has a definition of census towns. There are various types of inhabited localities in Russia, Statistics Sweden uses the term localities for various densely populated places. The common English-language translation is urban areas, the UK Department for Communities and Local Government uses the term urban settlement to denote an urban area when analysing census information.

The Registrar General for Scotland defines settlements as groups of one or more contiguous localities, the Scottish settlements are used as one of several factors defining urban areas. A populated place is not incorporated and by definition has no legal boundaries. However, a place may have a corresponding civil record. Census − a statistical area delineated locally specifically for the tabulation of Census Bureau data, civil − a political division formed for administrative purposes

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces.

South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa.

The Susquehanna River is a major river located in the northeastern United States. At 464 miles long, it is the longest river on the American east coast that drains into the Atlantic Ocean, with its watershed, it is the 16th-largest river in the United States, and the longest river in the continental United States without commercial boat traffic today. The Susquehanna rises and flows through New York, and it forms from two main branches, the North Branch, which rises in upstate New York and is regarded by federal mapmakers as the main branch, and the West Branch Susquehanna. Both of these waterways were improved by navigations throughout the 1820s and 1830s as the Pennsylvania Canal, together with facilities of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, loaded barges were transferred from the canal and hoisted across the mountain ridge into the Pittsburgh area. The 82-mile Union Canal was completed in 1828 to connect Schuylkill River in Reading to the Susquehanna above Harrisburg, an 82-mile leg connecting the Susquehanna with the Delaware River was instead developed as the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, built by the Pennsylvania Canal Commission.

The shorter West Branch, which rises in western Pennsylvania, joins the stem of the Susquehanna near Northumberland in central Pennsylvania. The river drains 27,500 square miles, including half of the land area of Pennsylvania. The river empties into the end of the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace, Maryland. The Chesapeake Bay is the ria of the Susquehanna, while less prevalent since their contraction in the 1950–1960s, the rivers shores still support a wide ranging rail transportation infrastructure. Also called the Main Branch Susquehanna, the branch of the river rises at the outlet of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown. From there, the branch of the river runs west-southwest through rural farmland and dairy country, receiving the Unadilla River at Sidney. It dips south into Pennsylvania briefly to turn north at Susquehanna Depot hooking back into New York. A couple miles south, just across the New York state line and it makes a right-angle curve between Sayre and Towanda to cut through the Endless Mountains in the Allegheny Plateau of Pennsylvania.

The origin of the official West Branch is near Northern Cambria County, Pennsylvania near the junction of Mitchel Road and it travels northeasterly through Curwensville and through Clearfield, where its joined by the Clearfield Creek right bank tributary. The West Branch turns to the southeast and passes through Lock Haven, the North Branch joins the West Branch from the northwest at Northumberland, just above Sunbury. It receives the Juniata River from the northwest at Duncannon, passes through its last water gap, downtown Harrisburg developed on the east side of the river, which is nearly a mile wide here. It crosses into northern Maryland approximately 30 miles northeast of Baltimore and is joined by Octoraro Creek, the river enters the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace. Concord Point Light was built here in 1827 to accommodate the increasing navigational traffic, Susquehanna comes from the Lenapi term Sisawehakhanna, which means Oyster River

The National Ranching Heritage Center, a museum of ranching history, is located on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. The NRHC features almost fifty authentic ranch buildings dating from the late 18th to the mid-20th century and these structures include a railroad depot, barn, schoolhouse and other historic structures. One views the exhibits through a walking tour. It is free to the public, the center was established in 1969 by the Ranching Heritage Association. Its first director was the historian and archaeologistWilliam Curry Holden and it was begun From 1977-1980, Jim Humphreys, who managed the Pitchfork Ranch in Dickens and King counties from 1965–1986, was the board chairman of the center. Until 1999, the NRHC was a part of the Museum of Texas Tech University, the NRHC has received donations from Montie Ritchie, the manager of the JA Ranch southeast of Amarillo from 1935 until his retirement in 1993. In 2013, David M. Matt Brockman was named NRHC executive director, formerly, he has been the administrative manager of the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, commonly known as the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.

Lubbock is a city in and the county seat of Lubbock County, United States. The city is located in the part of the state. According to a 2015 Census estimate, Lubbock had a population of 249,042, making it the 83rd most populous city in the United States of America and the 11th most populous city in the state of Texas. The city is the center of the Lubbock metropolitan area. The area is the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world and is dependent on water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation. Lubbock was selected as the 12th best place to start a business by CNNMoney. com. CNN mentioned the traditional business atmosphere, low rent for commercial space, central location. Lubbock is home to Texas Tech University, the sixth-largest college by enrollment in the state, Lubbock High School has been recognized for three consecutive years by Newsweek as one of the top high schools in the United States based in part on its international baccalaureate program. Lubbock County was founded in 1876 and it was named after Thomas Saltus Lubbock, former Texas Ranger and brother of Francis Lubbock, governor of Texas during the Civil War.

The European exploration of Australia was the exploration of Australia by Europeans or white explorers, encompassing several waves of seafarers and land explorers. While Australias territory never became an actual Dutch settlement or colony, Dutch navigators were the first to undisputedly explore, in the 17th century, the Dutch East India Companys navigators and explorers charted almost three-quarters of Australias coastline, except its east coast. The Dutch ship, led by Willem Janszoon, made the first documented European landing in Australia in 1606, explorers by land and sea continued to survey the continent for some years after settlement. Some writers have advanced the theory that the Portuguese were the first Europeans to sight Australia in the 1520s, a number of relics and remains have been interpreted as evidence that the Portuguese reached Australia. However, most historians do not accept this theory, and the interpretation of the Dieppe maps is highly contentious. The French navigator Binot Paulmier de Gonneville claimed to have landed at a land he described as east of the Cape of Good Hope in 1504, for some time it had been thought he discovered Australia, but the place he landed has now been shown to be Brazil.

The Dutch East India Company was set up in 1602 and traded extensively with the islands now form parts of Indonesia. The first documented and undisputed European sighting of and landing on Australia was in late February or early March 1606, Janszoon charted the Australian coast and met with Aboriginal people. On 26 February 1606, Janszoon and his party made landfall near the town of Weipa and the Pennefather River. Janszoon proceeded down the coast for some 350 km and he stopped in some places, but was met by hostile natives and some of his men were killed. These events were recorded in Aboriginal oral history that has come down to the present day, here Janszoon decided to turn back, the place being called Cape Keerweer, Dutch for turnabout. Later that year, De Quiros deputy Luís Vaez de Torres sailed to the north of Australia through Torres Strait, charting New Guineas southern coast, and possibly sighting Cape York in October 1606. In 1611 Hendrik Brouwer, working for VOC, discovered that sailing from Europe to Batavia was much quicker if the Roaring Forties were used.

Up to that point, the Dutch had followed a route copied from Arab and Portuguese sailors who followed the coasts of Africa and Ceylon. The Brouwer Route involved sailing south from the Cape of Good Hope into the Roaring Forties sailing east before turning north to Java using the South Indian Ocean Current, the Brouwer Route became compulsory for Dutch vessels in 1617. Most of these landfalls were unplanned, the first such landfall was in 1616, when Dirk Hartog, employed by VOC, reached land at Shark Bay off the coast of Western Australia. Finding nothing of interest, Hartog continued sailing northwards along this previously undiscovered coastline of Western Australia and he left the coast and continued on to Batavia. He called Australia T Landt van dEendracht, after his ship, in 1619 Frederik de Houtman, in the VOC ship Dordrecht, and Jacob dEdel, in another VOC ship Amsterdam, sighted land on the Australian coast near present-day Perth which they called dEdelsland

The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and as a vital transportation artery and communications link.

Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St.

Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river

Frontier refers to a contrasting region at the edge of a European-American line of settlement. American historians cover multiple frontiers but the folklore is focused primarily on the 19th century west of the Mississippi River. As defined by Hine and Faragher, frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states. They explain, It is a tale of conquest, but one of survival, thus, Turners Frontier Thesis proclaimed the westward frontier as the defining process of American history. As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the West in fiction and film took firm hold in the imagination of Americans, America is exceptional in choosing its iconic self-image. David Murdoch has said, No other nation has taken a time and place from its past, the frontier line was the outer line of European-American settlement. It moved steadily westward from the 1630s to the 1880s, Turner favored the Census Bureau definition of the frontier line as a settlement density of two people per square mile.

The West was the settled area near that boundary. Thus, parts of the Midwest and American South, though no longer considered western, have a frontier heritage along with the western states. In the 21st century, the term American West is most often used for the area west of the Mississippi River, in the colonial era, before 1776, the west was of high priority for settlers and politicians. The American frontier began when Jamestown, Virginia was settled by the English in 1607, French and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes and mid-west region they settled down. French settlement was limited to a few small villages such as Kaskaskia. They created a rural settlement in upstate New York. Areas in the north that were in the stage by 1700 generally had poor transportation facilities. The wealthy speculator, if one was involved, usually remained at home, the class of landless poor was small. Few artisans settled on the frontier except for those who practiced a trade to supplement their primary occupation of farming, there might be a storekeeper, a minister, and perhaps a doctor, and there were a number of landless laborers.

However frontier areas of 1700 that had good river connections were transformed into plantation agriculture

Bulgarias population of 7.2 million people is predominantly urbanised, most commercial and cultural activities are centred on the capital and largest city, Sofia. The strongest sectors of the economy are industry, power engineering. The countrys current political structure dates to the adoption of a constitution in 1991. Bulgaria is a parliamentary republic with a high degree of political, administrative. Human activity in the lands of modern Bulgaria can be traced back to the Paleolithic, animal bones incised with man-made markings from Kozarnika cave are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour in humans. Organised prehistoric societies in Bulgarian lands include the Neolithic Hamangia culture, Vinča culture, the latter is credited with inventing gold working and exploitation. Some of these first gold smelters produced the coins and jewellery of the Varna Necropolis treasure and this site offers insights for understanding the social hierarchy of the earliest European societies.

Thracians, one of the three primary groups of modern Bulgarians, began appearing in the region during the Iron Age. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians conquered most of present-day Bulgaria, and kept it until 479 BC. After the division of the Roman Empire in the 5th century the area fell under Byzantine control, by this time, Christianity had already spread in the region. A small Gothic community in Nicopolis ad Istrum produced the first Germanic language book in the 4th century, the first Christian monastery in Europe was established around the same time by Saint Athanasius in central Bulgaria. From the 6th century the easternmost South Slavs gradually settled in the region, in 680 Bulgar tribes under the leadership of Asparukh moved south across the Danube and settled in the area between the lower Danube and the Balkan, establishing their capital at Pliska

Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council.

Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851.

The first British settlement in the known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-GovernorDavid Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria

The Outback is the vast, remote interior of Australia. Culturally, the Outback is deeply ingrained in Australian heritage, early European exploration of inland Australia was sporadic. More focus was on the more accessible and fertile coastal areas, the first party to successfully cross the Blue Mountains just outside Sydney was led by Gregory Blaxland in 1813,25 years after the colony was established. This contrasts with the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition in 1860–61 which was better funded. The Overland Telegraph line was constructed in the 1870s along the route identified by Stuart, mineral exploration continues as new mineral deposits are identified and developed. While the early explorers used horses to cross the outback, the first woman to make the riding a horse was Anna Hingley. The paucity of land use has led to the Outback being recognised globally as one of the largest remaining. The savanna of northern Australia are the largest, intact savanna regions in the world, in the south, the Great Western Woodlands, which occupy 16,000,000 hectares, an area larger than all of England, are the largest remaining temperate woodland left on Earth.

Reflecting the wide climatic and geological variation, the Outback contains a wealth of distinctive, the Australian Outback is full of very important well-adapted wildlife, although much of it may not be immediately visible to the casual observer. Many animals, such as red kangaroos and dingoes, hide in bushes to rest, birdlife is prolific, most often seen at waterholes at dawn and dusk. Huge flocks of budgerigars, cockatoos and galahs are often sighted, on bare ground or roads during the winter, various species of snakes and lizards bask in the sun, but they are rarely seen during the summer months. Feral animals such as camels thrive in central Australia, brought to Australia by pastoralists and explorers, feral horses known as brumbies are station horses that have run wild. Feral pigs, foxes and rabbits are other imported animals that degrade the environment, so time, the Outback is home to a diverse set of animal species, such as the kangaroo and dingo. The Dingo Fence was built to restrict dingo movements into agricultural areas towards the south east of the continent, the marginally fertile parts are primarily utilised as rangelands and have been traditionally used for sheep or cattle grazing, on cattle stations which are leased from the Federal Government.

While small areas of the outback consist of soils the majority has exceedingly infertile palaeosols. Riversleigh, in Queensland, is one of Australias most renowned fossil sites and was recorded as a World Heritage site in 1994, the 100 km2 area contains fossil remains of ancient mammals and reptiles of Oligocene and Miocene age. The largest industry across the Outback, in terms of the occupied, is pastoralism, in which cattle, sheep. Capitalizing on the lack of improvement and absence of fertiliser and pesticide use

The National Ranching Heritage Center, a museum of ranching history, is located on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. The NRHC features almost fifty authentic ranch buildings dating from the late 18th to the mid-20th century. These structures include a railroad depot …

Lubbock — is the 11th most-populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Lubbock County. With a population of 256,042 in 2015, the city is also the 83rd most-populous in the United States. The city is located in northwestern part of the state, a region known historically …

Downtown

Lubbock has a large number of churches, including the downtown First Baptist congregation.

Borders are geographic boundaries of political entities or legal jurisdictions, such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Borders are established through agreements between political or social entities that control those areas; the creation of these …

The purpose of the Great Wall of China was to stop people and militaries from crossing the northern border of China. Today it is a relic border.

A photograph of the France–Italy border at night. The southwestern end of the Alps separates the two countries.

The Strait of Dover viewed from France, looking towards the United Kingdom.

The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2 and an estimated population of about 513 million. The EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of …

Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe …

The Balkans, also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographic area in southeastern Europe with various definitions and meanings, including geopolitical and historical. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria from the Serbian-Bulgarian …

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the southeast, Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, and …

Siberia is an extensive geographical region spanning much of Eurasia and North Asia. Siberia has historically been a part of modern Russia since the 17th century. — The territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the …

The history of Australia is the history of the area and people of the Commonwealth of Australia with its preceding Indigenous and colonial societies. Aboriginal Australians arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago. The artistic …

Kolaia man wearing a headdress worn in a fire ceremony, Forrest River, Western Australia. Aboriginal Australian religious practices associated with the Dreamtime have been practised for tens of thousands of years.

A Luritja man demonstrating method of attack with boomerang under cover of shield (1920)

Portrait of the Aboriginal explorer and diplomat Bungaree in British dress at Sydney in 1826

New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Tasman Sea to the east. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state. New South …

Japanese POW camp in Cowra, 1944, several weeks before the Cowra breakout

A short-lived South Maitland Railway (SMR) Railcar travelling between Weston and Abermain, 1962. The SMR is notable for being the second last system in Australia to use steam haulage.

Queensland is the second-largest and third-most populous state in the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the north-east of the country, it is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east …

Fighting between Burke and Wills's supply party and Indigenous Australians at Bulla in 1861

Parade of troops in Brisbane, prior to departure for the Boer War in South Africa.

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia …

Victoria is a state in south-eastern Australia. Victoria is Australia's smallest mainland state and its second-most populous state overall, thus making it the most densely populated state overall. Most of its population lives concentrated in the area …

South Australia is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of 983,482 square kilometres, it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, and fifth …

Australian native police units, consisting of Aboriginal troopers under the command usually of a single white officer, existed in various forms in all Australian mainland colonies during the nineteenth and, in some cases, into the twentieth centuries. The Native Police were utilised as a cost …

The European exploration of Australia first began in February 1606, when Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon landed in Cape York Peninsula and on October that year when Spanish explorer Luís Vaz de Torres sailed through, and navigated, Torres Strait islands. Twenty-nine other Dutch navigators explored …

The Australian frontier wars is a term applied by some historians to violent conflicts between Indigenous Australians and white settlers during the British colonisation of Australia. The first fighting took place several months after the landing of the First Fleet in January 1788 and the last …

The Outback is the vast, remote interior of Australia. "The Outback" is more remote than those areas named "the bush" which is any location outside the main urban areas. — While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines, and …

The American frontier comprises the geography, history, folklore, and cultural expression of life in the forward wave of American expansion that began with English colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last mainland territories as states in 1912. A …

The cowboy, the quintessential symbol of the American frontier, circa 1887

British colonization of the Americas began in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia, and reached its peak when colonies had been established throughout the Americas. The English, and later the British, were among the most important colonizers of the …

Plaque in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, commemorating Gilbert's founding of the British overseas Empire

The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued on into the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America. Most …

The overseas expansion under the Crown of Castile was initiated under the royal authority and first accomplished by the Spanish conquistadors. The Americas were incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, Canada, the eastern United States and several other small countries …

In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community in which people live. The complexity of a settlement can range from a small number of dwellings grouped together to the largest of cities with surrounding urbanized areas. Settlements may include …

The small town of Flora, Oregon in the United States is unincorporated, but is considered a populated place.

Some settlement sites may go out of use. This location in Estonia was used for human settlement in 2nd half of first millennium and it is considered an archaeological record, that may provide information on how people lived back then.

The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for 406 miles through four states. It rises at the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges at Long Island Sound. Its watershed encompasses five U.S. states and one …

The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It drains an area of 14,119 square miles in five U.S. states: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania. Rising in two branches in New York state's Catskill Mountains, the river flows 419 miles …

The river looking north above Walpack Bend, where it leaves the historic Minisink region, a buried valley eroded from Marcellus Shale bedrock

The Susquehanna River is a major river located in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States. At 464 miles long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the United States that drains into the Atlantic Ocean. With its watershed, it is the 16th-largest …

The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows 348 miles to Chesapeake Bay. The river length extends to 444 miles if one includes the Jackson River, the longer of its two source tributaries. It is the longest river in …

The Great Lakes, also called the Laurentian Great Lakes and the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of interconnected freshwater lakes primarily in the upper mid-east region of North America, on the Canada–United States border, which connect to the Atlantic Ocean …

Satellite image of the Great Lakes, April 24, 2000

Terra MODIS image of the Great Lakes, January 27, 2005, showing ice beginning to build up around the shores of each of the lakes, with snow on the ground.

Location in North America

Chicago on Lake Michigan is in the western part of the lakes megalopolis, and the site of the waterway linking the lakes to the Mississippi River valley

The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system on the North American continent, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. Its source is Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota and it flows generally south for 2,320 miles to the …

The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 4,800 kilometers from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico in the Southwestern United States. Located within …